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Saturday, 17 January 2009

100 Things About Me!

I've noticed a trend for 100 Things About Me on some other blogs, so thought I might have a go at that here - I hope you like getting a little closer to l'il ol' me, don't breathe too deeply in by the way, I've a bit of a sore throat just now, courtesy of Ter Griz!

1. grizzler Pictures, Images and Photos I am first and foremost a mum to Grizzler; That does not mean I am not occasionally manic, and value my independence.

2. I love reading - GJ once gave me a little silver charm of a book with a little worm inside it! I still have it...Photobucket

3. I am as blind as a bat and I couldn't respond well to sounds like bats do, because I am also practically corned beef - I am that person who has to cup her ear to hear you better when in cafes or bars! I am that old!
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4. I love candlelight and, one Christmas, was severely burned on the hand while moving a flaming (in more ways than one) glass tealight holder - Take care when burning candles, y'all.

5. I am a Civil Servant and have worked on regional policy work for three or four government departments, including the Home Office, since leaving College. So ask me anything you like about worklessness, the Childcare and Early Years agenda, or Crime and Drugs!

6. I wish I had the courage to work at being a writer, and I am always trying to harangue my (about to be married - see blog the day before yesterday) to write, because he is amazing...

7. I love this Blogging Community, and am very new to it!

8. I adore Stevie Nicks and identify wildly with her life... I have seen her once in concert in the year of my 40th Birthday; It made my year, how sad is that?! Photobucket

9. I live in the north of England, between raging sea, fragrant moor and ancient mountain.

10. I can drive, and my car is a Nissan X-Trail...

11. I bought the car with some of the small inheritance my much loved dad left me - I figured he would have wanted me to be safe... I had extreme 'Adult Orphan' feelings for a long time, (my mum passed ten years before my dad), and because of this have still actually to scatter his ashes, as he requested, on the island of Lindisfarne.Photobucket

It's 3 years since his passing, March in fact...

12. Previous to buying said SUV, I have twice been hauled out of 1) a stream, and 2) a ditch, both when it was snowing, and I once had to try to balance on the bonnet of GJ's car, in high heeled boots, 'to give some ballast', as he tried to drive our old car up an icy, slippery hill near our home in a blizzard!!!

13. I am terrified of losing everything and I am an awful worrier/flibbertigibbet and scopadiddle!

14. I get worse as I get older!

15. I'm a good listener and 'nodder'... (I give good Body Language, apparently!)

16. Oh, and my favourite colour is pink, sorry!

17. I sort of believe in angels, speak to them and ask them for interventions - to find me parking spaces, and so on! I am as mad as a ship's cat, you might have noticed?

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18. I am a spiritual person, butI am not what you might call religious.

19. I know I am a good person, and colleagues have been known to sneak up to others and ask whether I am really as nice as I seem...

20. People say I'm a great manager! I want the best for those who work with me. Other, tougher managers think I'm too lackadaisical with folk, but I know that isn't true!

21. I am a vegetarian, but one who does eat Moules Mariniere whenever in France or Belgium!

22. I am very close to my cousin, David, who is the brother I never had.

23. I wish I could make my living out of creating stained glass art.
Photobucket Maybe I could if I were as good as that!

24. My cat thinks I am a pontoon, a cushion and a feeding machine!

25. I love puddings and desserts!

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26. I love to swim and am a semi-aquatic creature!Otter Harem Pictures, Images and Photos This picture is for Billy!

27. I am overweight!

28. I am blonde and blue eyed.

29. I have visited the Bronte Parsonage and felt the family there!
Winter home Pictures, Images and Photos

30. I have always regarded my husband as my best friend.

31. Photobucket
That doesn't mean we don't sometimes fight!

32. I am appalled at the numbers of people who go missing each year and try to do constructive stuff around that fact.

33. Music is in my soul!

34. My son is a crazy drummer, and I love that!Photobucket

35. We have a small boat, but I am frightened of sailing on the unforgiving sea.

36. Our small yacht, Troika, is currently on a land-locked lake...Photobucket

37. I have an inner rock chick!Photobucket

38. I love history, and dabble knowledge-wise!

39. I identify with strong female leads - in history, on TV, in music!

40. I have a few treasured girlfriends, whom I treasure.
Treasure Chest Pictures, Images and Photos

41. I have a couple of really close male friends, whom I would trust with my life.

42. No male has ever lived up to the goodness of my dad...

43. My mum was a strong woman, but with a blancmange interior, a lot like me.Photobucket

44. She was one of the first bus drivers of her time!... Pictures, Images and Photos

45. I am very proud of her for that, among other achievements.

46. She never really understood my academic progress.

47. I adore Paris, but feel more "me" when in Germany.

48. inverness Pictures, Images and Photos My son was born in Inverness, and I am proud of the fact that he is sort of Scottish.

49. We used to go out at weekends to see if there was a Loch Ness Monster!Photobucket

50. I love art and art history.

51. In another life, I was going to work as a textile buyer for department stores, if I could not be a graphic designer!

52. My colleagues say my middle name is Google, and that I would have made a great detective!

53. I have known my best friend in the world since we were 3 years of age!Photobucket

54. I like clocks and we have a few!Photobucket I always like to know what time it is!

55. I am an eternal optimist and try to bolster others up!

56. In another life, I would love to deal in Antiques.Photobucket

57. I love Gustav Klimt and Edvard Munch.

58. I laid a rose on Albrecht Duerer's grave in Nuernberg.

59. I have visited Jim Morrison's grave in ParisPhotobucket, and my son was named for Jim and James BrownPhotobucket, as well as for my dad (and, it turns out, many of his forebears!)

Get on up!

60. I want to visit Keat's grave in Italy.

61. I dragged my 3 year old son around Keats' house in Hampstead!Photobucket

62. I dragged my 3 year old son around Dickens' house in Holborn.Photobucket

63. I despair at how uncultured he appears in his teen years!

64. I wish I could work in a voluntary capacity in animal welfare.

65. I was involved with British tv programmes to help the long term unemployed into work.

66. It was terrifying, and we only made 6 programmes!
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67. I was involved for 2 years with staff exchanges with the German Civil Service.

68. Duesseldorf!!! Pictures, Images and Photos I spent 6 weeks working in Duesseldorf when my son was 8.

69. If I hadn't met my OH I was bent on a career as a teacher in the Royal Air Force in Germany.

70. My dad spent 12 years in the RAF.Photobucket

71. I was conceived in Aden while my dad was in the RAF.

72. My mum was 17 when she married my dad.Photobucket

73. She was 27 when she had me.

74. I was 27 when I gave birth to Grizzler!

75. I am not a 'girly-girl'.

76. I wish I could have been an actress.Photobucket

77. I wish I had had the gift of being able to sing - See 95.

78. I feel European and not English, as such.

79. I speak French.

80. I speak German.

81. I speak un poco Espagnol.

82. I still have a lovely German penfriend, Silvia - Now we e-mail - 30 years' on and still going!

83. I sort of abandoned a French boyfriend at 17 (he was a little older), because I was terrified of the commitment he wanted of me, and the fact he wanted me to spend my summer looking after his aunt's children while he had a summer job as a petrol pump attendant. He was a bit of a male chauviniste, and I am a bit of a feministe... not a good match! I honestly hope his life turned out wonderfully.

84. I met GJ next when I was just 19. Go on, say it, you know you want to, "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww..."

85. I was an au pair to an aristocratic family in Paris when I was 20.

86. I still lurk on t'Internet to follow the paths of those babies I looked after, L (newborn) - who was adorable, and F-G (aged 2), who was a terrible-twos nightmare.

87. I have worked as a Council Playscheme Leader. We had a sandcastle building competition one day - It was pouring with rain and a blistering gale - It was the summer - One of the parents complained that his daughter had lost a sock and plimsoll when the tide came in. I thought he was lucky he still had his daughter - We were that chaotic!

88. I want to retire early to France; I want to look after a bunch of animals and indulge my (maybe?) grandchild(ren) then!
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90. PhotobucketI am a terrible cook, partly because I am out of practice, partly because my OH cooks so well, and partly because my kitchen is a wreck and only one ring on the cooker works!

91. I am a real cineaste! I don't mind going to the Cinema alone, but don't do it as often as I would like.

92. My most favourite film is Practical Magic. Photobucket

93. I have godchildren I don't see enough of...

94. PhotobucketI sometimes resent really pretty women whom men fall over to help - Their path in life always seems so much smoother, or is it just me? I never show my resentment by the way, like I say I am 'nice', and someone did tell me once that "Nice is under-rated as a quality in people!"

95. I am rushing this now, so I can go off and watch American IdolPhotobucket - It is my only weakness...

96. I love the sea (but not to sail on it).

97. I was brought up beside a fishing community with all the ensuing tragedies of lost lives - And I wonder where my sailing on the sea fears come from!

98. I do not like my in-laws very much - They don't like me and I don't understand them. I have tried... honestly!

99. I have never skiied or snow-boarded, but I have fallen off skateboards and bikes many times.
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100. I abseiled once in my teens and loved it!


I have noticed a trend here for doors and a surfeit of ambitions and unachieved career goals here - I know other people who have planned to do lots of things with their lives, and you recognise how our options do diminish as we grow older... I'm not in any way bitter, I feel it's just a part of growing up, that you settle for things sometimes... We all have to make compromises sometimes...

I think it's easier for young people in some respects nowadays - They can (indeed have to, world economy-wise) move from different job to different job, and across continents, particularly Europe. This is good for them, but I guess never easy...


And in conclusion, after all these words, here's something really rocking from the 80's, the fabulous Cameo and Word Up


Or, this is a rockier live version from Arsenio Hall - Enjoy!


Have a great Saturday all of you who cross this portal!

15 comments:

Ann Imig said...

You are AMAZING on so many counts I can't remember them all! You're fluent in two/three languages, you've traveled WITH babes, I love the McCain/Palin Pretty Woman! I can sing, but I wish I could ROCK OUT too. Thanks so much for sharing you with us!

Diane said...

What a wonderful list! I saw so much (SO MUCH) of myself in it (though that's not why it was wonderful! :). I'm sure I will be back to read it all again, as getting to know you better was lovely and worth a second (or third) look! Oh, and you reminded me I'm due for a 100 Things post soon (mine are not at all like yours... but you'll giggle ;)

Scriptor Senex said...

Arrived here via C Beth and the way you phrased your thoughts for Clark. Love this posting. real introduction to You. Such a posting should be obligatory in everybody's sidebar... (Just a suggestion but why not link to this posting in your sidebar - "find out 100 other things about me").
P.S. I really don't like pink!

Henry the Dog said...

What an interesting post. Mum can empathise with the 'Adult Orphan' feeling, she lost her parents within a short time of each other too and mum relates very much to 94;) She tries not to feel bitter:) But it's hard:):)

Stinking Billy said...

Fhina, fasscinating reading and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Just one word to the wise; beware the North Sea 'breezes' when about to cast the ashes of loved ones. Mrs Bill and I got covered from head to toe when seeing-off her favourite uncle some years ago - just off the Farnes, actually! x

Tim Atkinson said...

Gosh, that must take some doing! I mean, on hundred... really! Makes fascinating reading, though. And your number seven reminded me of the joke about the millionaire, desperate for a parking space. "God, I'll give half my fortune to the church if you just find me a place to park" he prays. At that moment, a car drives off. "Forget about it, God" the man says, "I've got one!"

Dumdad said...

What an fascinating walk through your life.

auntiegwen said...

I love it, we have quite a lot in common x

Thank you for this, I enjoyed it muchly x

A Woman Of No Importance said...

Honestly you are all really kind and just so lovely, you know you are, no blushing there!

I wondered whether anyone would find the bits and pieces interesting - I did have another version which was much darker, but eventually 'got a grip' and lightened things!

I honestly feel quite worthless sometimes, and wonder about that deathbed thing - I am frightened most of not doing enough in life - so to have excellent writers (and dogs) make lovely, empathetic and funny comments here is just wonderful.

I appreciate the time all you gorgeous (talented, interesting and busy) people have taken (out of your own fabulous blogs) to read my waffling and leave comments. You is AMAZING, thank you!

Anonymous said...

You are one hell of a dynamic person. Bravo!

Ever Yours,
Clayrn Darrow
M.IV

A Woman Of No Importance said...

Clay, no-one has ever called me dynamic in my life! I am glad you were the first, bless you!

Saz said...

hola Fhina! este historia es muy bueno!

Tu parles francais et un peu de espanol aussi....c'est magnifique mon ami!

et moi aussi Fhina!!!

There a lot of overlapping here...and we both live 'up north' l'm in Carlisle now where are you?

i did one of these once and then got rid of it, cos l heard a scary story, but maybe l'll pop it back up..cos they are so interesting tick, funny tick and cool tick!!!

FFF xx

A Woman Of No Importance said...

Ooh, FFF, maybe you could e-mail me, before I can do the Google talk thingie, to tell me about the scary story! Yikes!

I am north of Morpeth, west of Alnwick, south of Rothbury, Northumberland!

Saz, I did the ticky box thing, then wanted to be rid of it because it makes the place untidy, but can't remember how to get rid - What am I like?! xxx

Anonymous said...

Helloo again.

What an interesting post. Of course whenever I see a multi lingual strange old bird in pink with an oversized magnifying glass I will think it's you!

Love the Doors, but Jim was a bit of a dork imo although hubby would poke my eyes out for saying that.

Anonymous said...

ticky box thing - go to settings and posting I think it's in there somewhere.

Something I wrote earlier...

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